


Lay My Weapons Down (With My Pistol Fully Loaded)

by misura



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Mild Kink, Pre-Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 22:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14090796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "He always bring a knife to bed?" Sam asks, tone neutral.





	Lay My Weapons Down (With My Pistol Fully Loaded)

"He always bring a knife to bed?" Sam asks, tone neutral, not yet judging, except for the part where he's asking Goodnight, not Billy.

Other men, now, they might mean something by a thing like that. Might mean to imply someone like Billy, he doesn't really count as a person, on account of his skin being a different shade.

Coming from Sam, though, it's more likely an expression of concern. Love, even, although Goodnight would never be so indiscreet as to use that word out loud.

"Knives," Billy says. "Not knife. Plural." He doesn't actually pull them out, do a little exercise, a bit of mock stabbing and slashing, but Goodnight can tell he's tempted.

Sam tends to have that effect on people, making them want to show him themselves at their worst or best or someplace in between. ( _"War's over, soldier,"_ he once told Goodnight, and Goodnight'd shaken his head and replied, _"People like us, the war's never over."_ And now here they are, and no two doubts about which one of them had it right.)

"He ever cut you with one of them?" Sam asks, and because it's Sam, there's still no judgement, just a sort of polite interest. "That the sort of thing what gets you off now, Goodie?"

And the truth is, Goodie's maybe thought about it once or twice, idle-like.

Billy ever want to cut him, he'd hold still for it, no question. He's not sure if it'd get him hot and bothered, there being a fine line between the idea of something and the reality, but he knows what he felt those times Billy had to cut some clothes off of him on account of there being no saving them and a pressing need to get to Goodnight's skin.

He knows Billy'd be careful, had been careful, those times. He'd barely felt the knives at all, just the whisper of their passing over his skin.

"They're weapons," Billy says. "Not toys."

Sam shrugs, and Goodnight thinks he might drop the subject for all of half a second. Living legends are like that: the longer you haven't seen, felt, touched them up close, the easier it gets to convince yourself that they weren't as you pictured them, that it's just your imagination, covering up the flaws.

"So why bring them, then? You worried someone's gonna come in, start some trouble?"

Goodnight's slept in places like that, or pretended to, with Billy nearby, not bothering doing either.

"I go where he goes," Billy says jerking his head at Goodnight. "My knives go where I go."

"That how you see yourself?" Sam asks. "His? Property of Goodnight Robicheaux?"

Goodnight feels his body go still, the way it does when he's aiming, lining up another kill.

Billy grins, showing teeth. "He's mine," and Goodnight relaxes again, feeling the tension ebb.

It's true, any which way. Sam might maybe have staked a claim of his own, once upon a time, but these things pass. _"What we lost in the fire, we'll find in the ashes. What we sowed in the spring, we'll harvest in the autumn."_ Except that Goodnight's still not sure what season Sam's living in. The only person close to him Goodnight's ever lost was himself - and it wasn't through any agency but his own.

"And you take good care of him, do you? That how it is between the two of you?"

Goodnight wonders how anyone can miss it, how anyone can look at him and Billy, and think that Goodnight's the one in charge, the one profitting unfairly from their association - which he is, only it's because Billy lets him. Because Goodnight's not so far gone that he won't hold on with both hands to the best and brightest thing that's come into his life since he and Sam parted ways.

"Yes, Sam. That's exactly how it is," Goodnight says. "Any more questions?"

"I've got one," Billy says, turning to Sam without waiting for Goodnight to tell him not to. "Did you come here to talk or did you come here to fuck?"

Sam's face gives away nothing. If he were to ever lower himself to play poker with mere mortals, Goodnight reckons he'd make a killing. As things stand, he wastes a few moments wondering how long it's been for Sam.

Some men, it's hard to picture unbending enough for something quick and easy and meaningless.

"It so happens, I came to do both," Sam says. "On account of, I like to know who I get into bed with."

"Dead men," Billy says, which is harsher than Goodnight'd have put it himself.

"Not yet, we're not." Sam glances at Goodnight. "Reckon we stand as good a chance as we could hope for, all things considered. Everyone does what they're fixed to do, I guarantee you some of us will be riding out of here. Might even be all of us. Stranger things have happened."

Goodnight says nothing. To clam a disbelief in miracles would be disingenuous, given that he's gotten one twice already. Still, just as Billy's followed him here, so has the owl giving voice to the unquiet spirits of all the men who've died by his hand, confirmed and uncomfirmed kills both.

Billy's right when he says there is no owl, but he's also wrong, because Goodnight the owl is just a symbol, a physical manifestation of something much less easy to chase or kill.

"Goodie," Sam says, his tone as gentle as if he's talking to a spooked horse. "Take off your shirt. Unless you want me to ask Billy here to cut it off of you."

"He can ask me himself," Billy says.

"Of course." Sam gives in easily - too easily. Like a man who might maybe be relied on to make the kind of battle plan that won't see all of them dead, everyone in this town and those who've come because he's asked them. "That what you want to start the night off right, Goodie? To get Billy here to ruin your shirt?"

"A man with only one shirt is a man without a future." Goodnight swallows. "Billy?"

Billy grunts. "Finally."


End file.
